Federal Student Aid Enforcement Update: Protecting Military-Connected Students
Categories: US Education News
The U.S. government helps organization people, veterans, and their family members (i.e., military-related students) achieve the Quest for joy through high level training, especially with two critical benefit programs: (1) the Strategic Instructive expense Help (TA) program, which supports course work for thoroughly prepared, Public Guardian, and Hold Part organization people; and (2) the GI Bill®, which supports post-organization course work. These benefits can hide to 100% of instructive expense and a living installment at about 5,600 American schools, universities, and livelihood schools, giving the people who served and their families the opportunity to build predominant future through guidance.
Tragically, deceitful schools might be utilizing forceful and deluding enlisting practices to exploit administration individuals, veterans, and military-associated understudies and the projects intended to help them. The U.S. Department of Education (Department) is checking grievances and borrower safeguard to reimbursement applications revealing that help individuals, veterans, and military-associated understudies have been deceived, compelled, as well as constrained by school selection representatives and affirmations staff.
Today, we are warning schools that participate in the federal student aid programs that the kind of conduct mentioned above would violate the Department’s regulations, including the prohibition against substantial misrepresentations. Consequences for schools that violate these prohibitions could include the termination or limitation of a school’s participation in the Department’s federal student aid programs. In addition, borrowers subject to such misrepresentations or fraud could be entitled to a discharge of their student loans, and the offending schools could be liable to repay those funds.
The Department will vigilantly monitor schools for misrepresentations and similar practices. If we determine that a school has misrepresented costs or financing to military-connected students or has taken out loans in a prospective student’s name without that student’s knowledge, we will pursue such violations to the greatest extent of our authority and seek all appropriate corrective measures.
The Department is also committed to working with our state and federal enforcement partners, as we have highlighted before. In this case, we have shared information and complaints about military-connected students with relevant partners, including the U.S. Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs, for potential agency action.
FSA’s Office of Enforcement can do its job best when knowledgeable sources share information about potential violations by the institutions we oversee. Students and borrowers who have experienced the conduct described above or who wish to report any other issues related to their student aid or their schools may submit a complaint to the Department at StudentAid.gov/feedback-center.
FSA and the Department will work hard to ensure that veterans and service members—who devote their lives to protecting our nation—have a strong advocate within the Department to address and deter unscrupulous practices by schools seeking to harm them.